Sunday, October 31, 2010

'Street Scene: music by Kurt Weill; lyrics by Langston Hughes; book by Elmer Rice' Oakland East Bay Symphony, 5/13/11

[photo: (c) Eileen Darby Images, Inc. - Kurt Weill, Elmer Rice and Langston Hughes on the set of Street Scene.]

On Oct. 30 we wrote that Michael Morgan, Music Director and Conductor of the Oakland East Bay Symphony, has programmed Street Scene, described as “An American Opera.” Today we present the program for the concert. The program page of the American Masterworks Series features a link to an Audio Podcast of Maestro Morgan about the concert:
May 13, 2011
Friday, 8:00pm,
Paramount Theatre, Oakland
Michael Morgan, Conductor
Pre-concert talk by John Kendall Bailey at 7:00pm

Program
STREET SCENE (1946)
Music by Kurt Weill; lyrics by Langston Hughes;
book by Elmer Rice

Soloists tba
with
Oakland Symphony Chorus
(Lynne Morrow, Music Director)
and members of
Piedmont East Bay Children's Choir
(Robert Geary, Artistic Director)

“For our fourth production in the American Masterworks Series, we’ll present a concert version of Street Scene, Kurt Weill’s extraordinary musical theater piece which received the first Tony Award for Best Original Score.

“Best-known for his collaboration with Bertolt Brecht on The Threepenny Opera, Weill is one of the most innovative and influential theater composers of the twentieth century. In Street Scene, he mixes show tunes, jazz, arias, folk songs and spirituals to portray the passions and frustrations of a multi-ethnic New York City tenement block during two brutally hot days in the Depression era. With lyrics by the great Harlem Renaissance poet, novelist and playwright Langston Hughes, and based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Elmer Rice, Street Scene is an important, vital work that builds to an explosive conclusion.





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